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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Very odd happening this morning. On my Acer 2304 TravelMate I have Suse 10.2, which after a lot of hassle has been working fine for the last 6 weeks.

This morning the ZEN updater symbol was orange so I clicked and it said it had an update for SMB4K. I clicked "update" and left it. When I came back a bit later it had a dependency error box. This has happened several times recently with other updates, so I closed ZEN, opened YaST and did a search for SMB4K and sure enough it was installed, and an update was available. I clicked "check" and it said "dependencies are OK". This has happened before, ZEN shows a dependency error, when YaST is OK. So, I looked a bit deeper and found that ZEN wanted to update to SMB4K-2514-0, but YaST wanted SMB4K-0.8.5-26.i586. I let YaST do the update, and it was successful, however ZEN still said it needed to update.

I then removed "services" one at a time from the ZEN config and it stopped asking for an update when I removed the ~/updates/~ repo. I checked back and YaST had used the ~/suse-guru/~ repo. Had another look and indeed the two repos have different versions of the update. The ~/suse-guru/~ version has the same version number format as the old SMB4K, so I assume that is why the ZEN version threw the dependency error, it was trying to update to a different version (from the wrong distro?).

As I said, this is not the first time something like this has happened, but it's the first time I took the time to look in depth. Anyone had this problem with updates? Should I file a bug report?

Suse 10.2 has been remarkably stable after the initial hassles, and even coped with my new BT Home Hub! This is a Thomson clone and while it works OK, it has some really silly "features". Any one interested in dealing with problems with BT ADSL send me a PM. When I get the time I will post a Howto.

I've had strange problems with Zen and dependency errors myself. Most were under 10.1 and almost none under 10.2 . I would slug through each issue as it arised and I never quite got a handle on it, but when it seemed intractable, I killed Zen, and then I used YaST to uninstall all traces of the program to be updated. I would then, just to make sure, reboot, and so Zen would come up and do it's search again. It would likely present the same offers, but I could usually install them by then, and if not I wouold kill ZEN again, install via YaST and reboot. This would finally clear the item from ZEN. I think on the whole it is version contention as you suspect. THe SMB4k update was in fact a patch, but I got mine OK through ZEN. If you have more such difficulty I think it best to look at YaST and see what versions you have of particular things. What I would really like is that 1) Zen had an option to ignore unwanted upgrades, and 2) did a better job resolving dependencies, or would give the option of ignoring unresolvables. As far as version contention goes I think the more repositories you have, the more likely you are to accumulate mismatched versions. I have decided to accept the risk personally, for I seem to want to be on the bleeding edge even tho I've no business there.

I've just spent a couple of hours slowly going through all the YaST repos and re-building the Installation Sources list. After doing the SMB4K update, and finding that ZEN was still asking to do the update, I opened YaST and it came up with a "cannot find media on repository" error. The repo was the main ~/opensuse/distribution/10.2/repo/oss/ ! So I clicked "Skip" and it then did the same with the ~/non-oss/ repo, and the ~/update/~ repo.

In the end I took them all out, searched the openSuse site and made a new list. I did it one source at a time, and then did a reboot, and so far all is calm. Very annoying, but the only thing I can think is that the YaST/Zen synchronizing process screwed one or other of the repo lists.

I downloaded Smart last week, and had a play with that. It seems to work for a lot of people and also has an updater, which I might try instead of ZEN. This whole business of having YaST, ZEN, and rug working together is confusing. When it works it makes things so much easier than with Windows, but when it breaks it can completely ruin your day.

I can sympathise, for on top of YaST and Zen forever trying to one up each other, rug does a cron job for me every night. Either I am going to have one truly up to the nanosecond distro, or I am going to have one bloody mess

I have gotten the EXACT same SMB4K errors with the updater since the day I installed 10.2. I've been through usenet and the news groups to no avail. I don't use SMB4K much so i just live with it for now.

I have gotten the EXACT same SMB4K errors with the updater since the day I installed 10.2. I've been through usenet and the news groups to no avail. I don't use SMB4K much so i just live with it for now.

I don't really understand why yast gets such bad publicity - how many times will I have to attempt a package update with zen, then it gives you its usual "dependancy" error - then you do the same thing with yast - and it just works!